


Interludes

by kittybenzedrine



Series: Crawl Out Through The Fallout [2]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Child Death, Deacon being Deacon, F/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Sexual Content, Spying, Teen Pregnancy, Unintentional Vouyerism
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-10
Updated: 2018-11-11
Packaged: 2019-08-21 10:17:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16574570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kittybenzedrine/pseuds/kittybenzedrine
Summary: A few interludes I previously wrote for Crawl Out Through The Fallout (Into My Loving Arms), before I had a real idea of what I wanted out of the series. Not canon to the story, but I didn't want to let the writing go to waste.





	1. Spy

**Author's Note:**

> Hey quick warning that there's implied abuse. The situation is misread real hard but there's no actual abuse going on.

It's Deacon's job to know things. He's the main intel runner, has to be in the know of anything going on, no matter how seemingly inconsequential or small. But these two, oh boy, these two are anything but small and inconsequential.

These two vault dwellers are making waves. Leo and Ren, they're called, though Deacon knows their full names, and at least half of their backstory. Anchorage war vets who settled down in a good neighborhood, had a baby, yada yada, then the bombs fell and they were locked in an advanced freezer for two hundred years. Also, their baby was stolen, presumably by the Institute. Pretty big detail, can't forget that.

So, of course he's been tailing them. Leo is the General of the Minutemen, and seems kinda sympathetic to the Railroad's cause, but it's not him that Deacon's looking at. Ren seems to be pretty enthusiastic about helping synths, way more emotionally invested in it than her husband. But to be fair, her husband doesn't have a lot of emotion to begin with.

Both of them could be useful. Leo's got a silver tongue good enough to convince someone that a pile of brahmin shit is gold, and Ren is... She's very driven. Once she has her mind on something, it gets done. Even when she's half-heartedly doing something, she still gets it done in the end.

Deacon has to listen as much as he watches. Watching her wave her arms wildly in the middle of an empty street while Leo stares blankly is one thing, but the context of hearing her shouting "But Moss is right! Three pieces of bread jammed together isn't a bread sandwich!" brings it all together.

Tonight, he mostly is just here to listen. Their Red Rocket base is pretty nicely fortified, he's been inside a couple times while they were out. Had a good laugh about the two sets of handcuffs sitting on the dresser with a Quantum set up as a nightlight, snooped through their clothes and supplies. The front windows are boarded shut for privacy, but the empty, broken out glass spots on the doors make it optimal to listen. Sound carries in there.

Usually, they're in bed at around nine. Maybe not asleep, but they seem to like to go to bed early and rise early. They also like to talk for a while, sometimes it's about whatever stupid shit crosses Ren's mind, sometimes about their kid (Deacon isn't sure how they feel about the kid, really), sometimes just mundane shit that happened during the day. So Deacon times it so they he shows up at around 8:45. Definitely before they go to bed, but also definitely after dark.

When Deacon comes up to the Red Rocket, boots in his hand to muffle his footsteps, it's not talking he hears.

He's not even quite close to the door when he hears something that he can't place, a collision of like surfaces, and some kind of muffled noise. Closer still, it's easier to make out the solid sound of flesh smacking flesh, and not in a pleasant way. Deacon's stomach drops when he hears it again, then Ren crying out.

Fuck. Ren's known to raise Leo's ire occasionally, but Deacon didn't think he'd be the kind of man to hit his wife. He leans his back against the wall, away from the door, and feels his own temper flare as it continues. He grits his teeth, wondering if it'd be better to come back later. Preferably only for her.

But Leo stops. "Look at me," he says, low and firm. Deacon doesn't even need to see him to tell Leo's lip is curled, showing his teeth. There's another sharp smack, and Ren yelps. " _Look at me, Renee_."

Yeah. Yeah, it's about time to go.

"Do you want me to do it again?" Deacon hears Leo asks as he's trying to soundlessly get his shirt unstuck from the brick. Leo's known to have some damn good hearing. Deacon kind of wishes his own wasn't that good. Listening to someone getting abused definitely isn't one of his favorite things to hear.

" _Yes,_ " he hears Ren moan, voice rough, strained, and Deacon falters.

... Oh.

The hitting and shouting starts back up again, but, uh. Now that he has context, he's a whole lot less angry. Still leaving though, he doesn't want to listen to their kinky foreplay. He stumbles over the lip of the foundation in his distracted state, and his bare foot scrapes through the gravel. All sound immediately stops from within.

Shit, fuck. Not good. He needs to get the fuck out of there, like, right now. It's not safe to run, makes too much noise and Leo _will_ chase him if he sees him. Deacon retreats as far as he dares, the door still in view. Hopefully the dark blue clothing will help him blend in. Hopefully the cap he has on will keep his fucking shiny bald head from giving him away.

What was it he heard Ren say one time? "If anyone saw a buff, six-foot-tall Native American man coming towards them with a knife, they'd probably run". Something like that. But either way, she wasn't wrong. Leo appears at the door in only his boxers, opens it up with a pistol in one hand and a combat knife in the other. Every instinct in Deacon's body screams for him to bolt, but he doesn't want to be cut to ribbons by a guy who killed a deathclaw with just that knife. He watches Leo search, glancing around. Thankfully, his eyes pass right over Deacon's hiding spot. Leo goes back inside, very pointedly locks the door, and disappears from view.

Yep. Deacon's done for the night. Time to go write a report and make Dez suffer with him. As quietly as he can manage, Deacon gets right the fuck out of there.


	2. Ranger Cabin

"I can't believe we lived so close to this place and never saw it before," Ren remarks, shaking mud off of the toe of one of her boots.

Leo hums in acknowledgment, but doesn't say anything. He wipes the bloatfly guts from his knife using the broken railing of the dilapidated cabin in front of them. It is strange, but then again, they've never had reason to come out this direction before. It's just well hidden enough between Wicked Shipping and Abernathy's farm that neither had ever noticed it.

He goes in first to assess for danger, but there's nothing left. Ren comes in behind him, goes straight to the skeleton by the wall while he takes in the broken and upended furniture.

"She's so tiny," Ren murmurs, kneeling down by the mattress. Even after two hundred and some-odd years, the girl's dress has stayed mostly intact. The skeleton is curled up, arms tight around her chest and looking like a pitiful thing, even dead. "Either a really small woman, or a teenager."

Leo nods, though Ren can't see him. He doesn't understand her fascination with skeletons, but who is he to judge her? He busies himself instead of saying anything about it.

There's a nice magazine on the busted up stereo, a copy of the Wasteland Survival Guide that he hasn't seen yet, and he flips through it while Ren mutters to herself. Means someone has been here recently. It's a good edition, though the diagrams are as poorly drawn as ever. He already knows how to defend himself against melee attacks, which is the subject of this magazine, but it's a nice refresher. Leo'll pass it to Ren when she's done.

"Leo? The zipper on this suitcase is rusted shut, can you open it for me?"

"Yeah." He tosses the magazine back where he found it for the moment, and crosses the five steps over to her.

Moving aside to let him closer, Ren watches him work. Leo digs his knife into the tiny gap where the case isn't closed, wedges the blunt end into it and wiggles the zipper, shoves it until it snaps clean off. He forces his littlest finger into the small hole that it left, careful not to cut himself, and pushes at the rusty metal teeth until there's a hole large enough to get both hands in. After that, it's just a matter of him brutely tearing it open and not spilling the contents.

"Done."

She thanks him, and sets about checking over the contents. There isn't much. A folded dress, some candy, what appears to be an incredibly old pregnancy test. Ren takes it by the handle, holds it up to look, but time hasn't been kind and she can't even tell if it's used, let alone if it's a positive or negative.

"What's that?" Leo asks from the doorway, back to flipping through the magazine. He's not even looking at her, probably just saw Ren out of his peripheral vision.

"Pregnancy test. Too old to read if it's a plus or minus."

He grunts, and she takes that to mean the conversation is over. Whatever. Ren pulls the dress out, and Leo pays a little more attention when a holotape falls out of the folds and clatters onto the wooden flooring.

That's weird. She picks it up, looks for some kind of label, but the tape is blank on the outside. There's one one way to determine what the contents are. Lucky, there's two tape players in the room. It takes a moment to get the stupid thing open, but after a moment, Ren gets the tape into her Pip-Boy and gets it going.

" _October 22, 2077_ ," the voice starts, and though she suspected it, Ren's still stricken by how young she sounds. Fifteen, sixteen at the most.

 _I finally told them tonight, and it was bad. Real bad. Dad was shouting, telling me I should be ashamed, that I had to get out of the house. Mom just cried, and somehow that hurt worse than anything else. She didn't say a word, not even when I packed my things._ "

Ren looks to her husband, still at the door. Leo's stone faced, but she can still read something like anger in the faint clench of his jaw as there young girl's voice plays out. She feels much the same, though there's some sadness in her own case.

" _I can't go to John-- he doesn't even know yet. Maybe he'll never know. If it weren't for the cabin I wouldn't have a place to sleep. Just need some time to think. Last time I was here, I was just a little girl playing clubhouse in this old cabin. Now I'm really scared. Will anything ever be right again?_ "

The silence left after it's over is heavy. Ren can feel herself tearing up as like bits and pieces start to connect. She knows that voice. One of the neighbor girls from Sanctuary, from before the war. Remembers a pretty, dark-haired girl of fifteen with a glittering smile and a sleazy older boyfriend named John.

"The Cofran's..." Ren trails off, looking down at the skeleton. "They had two daughters. I didn't see Madeline in any of the cryo pods, only Cindy."

Leo looks away, lets his wife wipe her tears away without any eyes on her. He remembers Madeline, sort of. She was much younger the last time Leo interacted with her, hell, how long ago was that? She was maybe eleven. He and Ren had just moved into Sanctuary, and Ren paid the girl a few dollars to help her plant the flowerbeds. Madeline was all smiles and dirty hands, always said please and thank you, called him Mr. Leo every time she saw him. Real pretty kid. Sweet thing too, the kind of kid he'd want if he'd ever had a daughter.

Fucked up as is, she should be rotting in a cryo chamber with the rest of her family, not laying on a dirty mattress in the middle of the woods. It's disgusting they she died here alone and scared because her family reacted so horribly.

He kneels down next to Ren, placing the magazine on the ground. She leans into him when he gets an arm around her, and the two of them take a long look at the small sad scene huddled on the mattress.

"What do you want me to do with her?" he asks quietly, curling his fingers into a gap in her chest plate. "I can come back tomorrow with a shovel, if you'd like. Give her a proper burial." Leo doesn't want to do the labor, but he will if it'll give Ren some piece of mind. He’ll do it for Madeline.

Ren stays silent, staring blankly at the empty sockets where Madeline's eyes used to be. Her dress, even after two hundred and some-odd years, is still in tact, still beautiful.

"Leave her," she decides after a moment. "Just... leave her. Burying her won't change the fact about how she died." He can hear her staring to choke up. "It would be a bandaid over a crack. Would cover up the damage, but won't change a thing."

She goes quiet again, faintly sniffling. A beat passes, then two. Ren's movements are slow, but she leans over and picks up the loose dress the tape came from. It's soft, faded in the lines where it's been folded for so long in the weathered suitcase. She refolds it back onto those same lines, sets it on the edge of the mattress when she's done and just looks at it. The pregnancy test goes back where she found it, the candy tucked into the upper corner. She replaces the dress last.

He's kind enough to take the tape from her and tuck it inside the dress. The suitcase can't be zipped back, so he hopes that closing the lid will be enough. Next to him, Ren's eyes are trained on the floor. Just another piece of their old lives back to haunt them, in the form of a scared girl who died alone when the world came to an end. A girl they knew.

"When you're ready," Leo says quietly, letting his hand slide down her side to pat her thigh. He's not good at comfort, but it's enough for her.

"Okay," Ren says in a small voice, looking like she has more to say. But she hesitates, blinks slow and regards the little skeleton. There's nothing they could have done. "Okay."

**Author's Note:**

> I'm always very appreciative of your comments and kudos, so don't be shy about leaving either of those!
> 
> I have [my blog](http://iwillpooponthefloor.tumblr.com) on tumblr, if you'd like to check that out.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


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